Flow and Body Economics part 1

Have you ever felt like you just couldn't wait to get done with work so you could go home and finally enjoy yourself?  Have you ever found yourself stuck-feeling, agitated, or anxious wanting to just be done with the task at hand? 
Have you ever felt a stifling ennui wherein nothing much seems interesting?

What is missing in these scenarios is a particular kind of currency--the hallmark of a system's dynamism.  What's missing is the quality of flow or movement.

Just like an economic recession--a contraction or a shock to the cycles of transactions occurs, a fall in GDP [read:  a system's creativity or output]--our bodies can experience a kind of stuckness.  We can feel emotionally stuck [anxious], an inability to focus [distractibility], or even depression and boredom.  These are some of our bodies' ways of telling us that we're experiencing an energetic slowdown; perhaps our output temporarily stops.

Drawing from the work of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Tony Schwartz, and others, this Saturday, at Yoga Now, you will learn, experientially:

• the subtle markers of a flow state. 
• You will create and reinforce rituals/cues around entering flow state so as to enter it more quickly and more often in future practice sessions.

"But isn't flow a yoga style?  Doesn't flow mean I have to be moving continuously or be doing lots of repetitions?"
Not necessarily...

• You will learn that flow is possible within every activity be it knitting, yoga, marathons, or roller derby.

• that emotions are a a component of the experience, not the drivers

• that the experience itself, even if it's challenging, can be intrinsically rewarding
  

This flow state has spiritual growth implications too.  As the wisdom traditions and mystics point out to us, there is art to uncovering our greatest Intelligence.

Looking Into The Creek

The way the soul is with the senses and the intellect is
like a creek.  When desire weeds

grow thick, intelligence can't flow, and soul creatures
stay hidden.  But sometimes

the reasonable clarity runs so strong it sweeps the clogged
stream open.  No longer weeping

and frustrated, your being grows as powerful as your wantings
were before, more so.  Laughing

and satisfied, the masterful flow lets creations of
the soul appear.  You look

down, and it's lucid dreaming.   The gates made of light
swing open.  You see in.
                                                                                --Rumi; translation by Coleman Barks

Share this.  Join us.

Forrest Yoga Practice

Saturday April 20, 2013; 1-3pm

Yoga Now
742 North LaSalle Chicago, IL  60654 [email protected]
312.280.9642
Parking available, validation offered through studio.
Call studio to register

Your practice will be led by Gwen, shown here, in her flow locale.